Free and Expense vs Investment
Kaempferrand said:
DESPISE THE FREE LUNCH...
What is offered for free is dangerous - it usually involves either a trick or a hidden obligation. What has worth is worth paying for. By paying your own way you stay clear of gratitude, guilt, and deceit. It is also often wise to pay the full price - there is no cutting corners with excellence. Be lavish with your money and keep it circulating, for generosity is a sign and a magnet for power.
What is offered for free or at bargain rates often comes with a psychological price tag - complicated feelings of obligation, compromises with quality, the insecurity those compromises bring, etc. The powerful learn early to protect their most valuable resource: independence and room to maneuver. By paying the full price, they keep themselves free to dangerous entanglements and worries.
So who ever said that the best things in life are free are truly fooling themselves and others. Talk about the blind leading the blind.
One of the best and most stimulating posts of the year K.
FREE
Free is a very misleading concept and open to abuse.Drug dealers get future customers hooked with a free sample.Politicians tell us about the "Canadian tradition" of free health care.In the first example free translates into a significant future cost - money,health,lifestyle,etc.In the second example - free overlooks indirect taxation and does not mean the best health care.Free health care is very easy to identify.The best health care is not easy to identify.In many similar circumstance free tends to slide towards worthless.
Best things in life are free - subjective and trite.From a cynical point of view it may be argued that certain things are free because no one has figured out a way to make money from them.Conversely because certain things are free they are not cherished.Education falls into this category.Up until a certain age students get a free education(overlooking their parents taxes) but fail to take advantage.Same students when they pay out of pocket value an education.
Still the process comes down to reason and a persons ability to make the right choices regardless of the cost factors.
EXPENSE VS INVESTMENT
Independence and room to manouver is another way of saying that you let reason decide what is the best option at any given time.Whether something is free or not it usually comes with obvious or implied links to something else and often these links prevent a reasoned decision.How these links are evaluated comes down to the EXPENSE VS INVESTMENT question.
The key point in the whole discussion is the Expense vs Investment issue and to which end of the spectrum does one lean and how far?
If the wife/SP question (setting aside jurisdiction,tradition,pre-nups,etc.) is viewed strictly as an expense issue then the debate becomes tilted in one direction.If the investment factor is introduced then the direction shifts.After all I do not think that many men would want an SP looking after their interests in times of illness or injury nor would I recommend hiding assets with an SP in times of financial stress.
The concept of conjugal or wifely duties or the transactional nature of sex within marriage is a mix of old religious views mixed with modern legal and financial realities.If the relationship is strictly expense oriented then should either party expect sex to be anything other than a bargaining chip? At the other extreme you have the view that holds marriage to be an emotional investment implying that both parties have an interest in enhancing their love life as time marches on.
As long as you have your health, everything else is irrelevant.
